Faulty Intelligence?

[Daisy]

More fuel on the fire:

*sniip*

'Alternative intelligence'

The report says that Feith's office "developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and Al Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the intelligence community."

The quote from the report was included in a statement released Thursday night by Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Levin also said the report found that Feith acted inappropriately, taking on a role that should have been reserved for the intelligence analysts.

The report is sure to add fuel to the controversy over President Bush's main justifications for overthrowing Hussein.

Before the invasion, Bush and other administration officials warned that Hussein had stockpiles of banned biological and chemical weapons and had ties to Al Qaeda terrorists.

The alleged caches of weapons have not been found, and the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Hussein and Al Qaeda.

*snip*

Source: LA Times: Julian E. Barnes: 2/9/2007 (linky)

Hmm...alternative intelligence assessments...that were inconsistent with the consensus of the intelligence community.

 

[poncho]

Do I understand correctly that the Pentagon (neocon occupied territory) is investigating one of it's own?

Isn't that a bit "like asking the Mafia to investigate its own drug-running and prostitution operations"?

 

[Daisy]

It is a Pentagon Inspector General's report. Apparently, the White House didn't like the CIA's intelligence report, so Defense undersecretary Feith's office "produced and developed" contrary information.

Bush took the Defense undersecretary's information over the CIA's. Did he do this knowingly or was he a dupe?

 

[El_Guero]

The entire congress took the 'bait' . . .

:laugh:

It is a Pentagon Inspector General's report. Apparently, the White House didn't like the CIA's intelligence report, so Defense undersecretary Feith's office "produced and developed" contrary information.

Bush took the Defense undersecretary's information over the CIA's. Did he do this knowingly or was he a dupe?

 

[Daisy]

The entire congress took the 'bait' . . .

:laugh:

No, not the entire congress, but most of them thought they were being given real, not doctored, information. Very few believed the president and his cronies would be so heinous as to lie their way into another war as we were already in one with those who perpetrated 9-11.

Um, you think it's funny Rummy's underling pulled it off?

 

[El_Guero]

Um . . . tells me just how little you do know about intelligence and the intelligence community . . . .

:wavey:

Even the French would have disagreed with your present assessment in December of 2001.

No, not the entire congress, but most of them thought they were being given real, not doctored, information. Very few believed the president and his cronies would be so heinous as to lie their way into another war as we were already in one with those who perpetrated 9-11.

Um, you think it's funny Rummy's underling pulled it off?

 

[poncho]

No, not the entire congress, but most of them thought they were being given real, not doctored, information. Very few believed the president and his cronies would be so heinous as to lie their way into another war as we were already in one with those who perpetrated 9-11.

Um, you think it's funny Rummy's underling pulled it off?

Well not to worry this little bit of entertainment for the masses isn't going to stop them from lying us into the next phase of their clean break war plans.

 

[carpro]

No, not the entire congress, but most of them thought they were being given real, not doctored, information.

There is no evidence that anything was "doctored".

 

[Daisy]

There is no evidence that anything was "doctored".

Well, I guess you might argue that "developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and Al Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the intelligence community" doesn't mean "doctored", but you'd just be arguing semantics.

 

[2 Timothy2:1-4]

And yet President Bush came to the same conclusion of the following:


Former President Clinton
Sentator Hillary Clinton
Senator John Kerry
The European Intelligence community


When did they agree on this. In 1998. If you accuse President Bush of lying or misrepresenting intelligence then you need to include the list above in your accusations.

 

[carpro]

Well, I guess you might argue that "developed, produced and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and Al Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the intelligence community" doesn't mean "doctored", but you'd just be arguing semantics.

"Alternative intelligence assessments", whether you like it or not, is what "intelligence" is all about.

Your intentional misuse of the word "doctored" is a deliberate attempt to create the appearance of wrongdoing in order to match your agenda.

 

[El_Guero]

Carpro,

It is easy to see that with "Alternative intelligence assessments" among the atagonists there has been a lack of 'normal intelligence'.

"Alternative intelligence assessments", whether you like it or not, is what "intelligence" is all about.

Your intentional misuse of the word "doctored" is a deliberate attempt to create the appearance of wrongdoing in order to match your agenda.

 

[Daisy]

And yet President Bush came to the same conclusion of the following:


Former President Clinton
Sentator Hillary Clinton
Senator John Kerry
The European Intelligence community

What exact conclusion did the above come to and how do you know?

When did they agree on this. In 1998. If you accuse President Bush of lying or misrepresenting intelligence then you need to include the list above in your accusations.

Did they present "alternative" intelligence reports as evidence of wrong doing to get Congress to pass a war authorization?

 

[Pastor Larry]

Not to butt in, but ... well to butt in.

What exact conclusion did the above come to and how do you know?

They came to the conclusion that Iraq had WMDs, and we know that because they said it.

Next question?

 

[Daisy]

Not to butt in, but ... well to butt in.

They came to the conclusion that Iraq had WMDs, and we know that because they said it.

Next question?

Did they come to the conclusion that al Qaeda was working in Iraq or that Iraq posed enough of a threat (nuclear, WMD) to require and justify a "preemptive strike"? I don't think so.

More from Voice of America (linky):

*snip*

Lawrence Wilkerson was chief of staff to Colin Powell when Powell was secretary of state. He saw the 48-page analysis produced by Feith's office as he prepared Secretary Powell's critical speech to the United Nations on Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction and its alleged links to al-Qaida. Wilkerson says even Vice-President Dick Cheney's then-chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, likened it to a menu. After reviewing it, Wilkerson says, his team discarded it.


"Well, it came over from the vice-president's office to the secretary [of state] to me, and I took it out to the CIA with my task force," he explained. "And we in the first day discarded it entirely because it was unsupported, unsourced, and it was clear to us that it was just a concoction of - well, Scooter Libby himself actually supposedly told the secretary that it was a Chinese menu from which you could pick and choose what you needed. Well, that's not what we needed."

Feith himself, who no longer works in government, could not be reached for comment. But the inspector general's summary released Friday quotes him as saying that his office's actions did not constitute intelligence activities. He also told the Washington Post newspaper that he was not producing "alternative intelligence assessments."

*snip*


"I can understand the military and the DOD's [Department of Defense's] reluctance to accept any opinions from the CIA," he [Wilkerson] said. "But to set up an alternative community with the DOD that was not even affiliated with military intelligence personnel, or at least not directly - as I saw it, it was an entity all unto itself designed principally not so much to put together intelligence as to put together propaganda."


Asked about the issue, White House spokesman Dana Perino said the Bush Administration has initiated reforms to ensure there is no repeat of the flawed intelligence that has haunted the U.S. venture into Iraq.

Apparently, George Tenet took the fall for flawed intelligence, but the really flawed intelligence didn't come from the CIA or from the military intelligence division of the Defense Dept.

 

[Daisy]

Still more from FoxNews (linky):

Pentagon Defends Pre-Iraq War Intelligence
Friday, February 09, 2007
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Pentagon officials undercut the intelligence community in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq by insisting in briefings to the White House that there was a clear relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, the Defense Department's inspector general said Friday.

Acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the office headed by former Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith took "inappropriate" actions in advancing conclusions on Al Qaeda connections not backed up by the nation's intelligence agencies.


Click here to read the report. [<--linky!]

*snip*

"I can't think of a more devastating commentary," said Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

He cited Gimble's findings that Feith's office was, despite doubts expressed by the intelligence community, pushing conclusions that Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague five months before the attack, and that there were "multiple areas of cooperation" between Iraq and Al Qaeda, including shared pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

"That was the argument that was used to make the sale to the American people about the need to go to war," Levin said in an interview Thursday. He said the Pentagon's work, "which was wrong, which was distorted, which was inappropriate ... is something which is highly disturbing."

*snip*

If I'm reading this correctly, Feith's "analysis" contradicted the findings on which it was supposedly based.

 

[Pastor Larry]

Did they come to the conclusion that al Qaeda was working in Iraq or that Iraq posed enough of a threat (nuclear, WMD) to require and justify a "preemptive strike"? I don't think so.

As I read the conversation here, that was not what was said they agreed on. I think you are conflating somethings in hopes of strengthening your point.

Faulty or not, the intelligence Bush acted on when back to at least the middle of hte 90s, and was used by Clinton for airstrikes. It was also used by the IAEA to send in inspectors, who were kicked out and then let back in with limited access. It was affirmed by all the intelligence gathering nations of the world.

So virtually everyone agreed on the intelligence.

 

[Daisy]

As I read the conversation here, that was not what was said they agreed on. I think you are conflating somethings in hopes of strengthening your point.

Or maybe you are throwing in a red herring - this is about the report.

Pentagon officials undercut the intelligence community in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq by insisting in briefings to the White House that there was a clear relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, the Defense Department's inspector general said Friday.

Besides, you asked, " Next question?" Remember?

Faulty or not, the intelligence Bush acted on when back to at least the middle of hte 90s, and was used by Clinton for airstrikes. It was also used by the IAEA to send in inspectors, who were kicked out and then let back in with limited access. It was affirmed by all the intelligence gathering nations of the world.

Who didn't, for the most part, think it warranted invasion.

So virtually everyone agreed on the intelligence.

Who all agreed that al Qaeda was in cahoots with Iraq which was used by the WH to extend the war in Afghanistan into Iraq?

 

[Pastor Larry]

Who didn't, for the most part, think it warranted invasion.

Clinton thought it warranted air strikes, but that wasn't the subject of the issue about who agreed on what.

Who all agreed that al Qaeda was in cahoots with Iraq which was used by the WH to extend the war in Afghanistan into Iraq?

That wasn't the topic. The report says (copied from your quote) Bush and other administration officials warned that Hussein had stockpiles of banned biological and chemical weapons. And Clinton, Gore, Kerry, et al agreed.

Is that clear?

 

[El_Guero]

Clinton thought it warranted air strikes, but that wasn't the subject of the issue about who agreed on what.

That wasn't the topic. The report says (copied from your quote) Bush and other administration officials warned that Hussein had stockpiles of banned biological and chemical weapons. And Clinton, Gore, Kerry, et al agreed.

Is that clear?

It is clear to me . . . and it was clear to 80% of Americans in late 2001.

Peace to you.